But the city's massive problems and historically unprecedented circumstances are not the talk of the town when it comes to the race.

Instead, it's a barber in flip flops who filed a declaration of intent to run as a write-in candidate Thursday.

The barber's name is Mike Dugeon, two letters different from Mike Duggan, the former Wayne County prosecutor who launched a write-in campaign last month after being knocked off the ballot because he filed too early.

The similarity in spelling could cause some confusion for voters and Duggan's campaign blames supporters of Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon for putting Dugeon up to running.

"I had nothing absolutely to do with that," he said. "... To blame it on me, for whatever reason they chose to do it, is just outrageous.

"Strange things happen in the course of campaigns."

Duggan earlier on the same radio program said he believes the development will cost him some votes in August, but not enough to keep him off the November.

"If you're going to run for mayor of Detroit, you're going to have unexpected things and you've got to be ready to deal with it. And we are," he said.

Whan caller pointed out that Dugeon as a resident has every right to run for mayor, Duggan said the most troubling things about the development were that the new candidate is blatantly using nearly identical campaign colors and slogans to his own.